Sex Offender, 81, Jumps Off Joliet Bridge, Drowns: Police

JOLIET, IL — An 81-year-old man who was a convicted sex offender took his own life on Friday morning by jumping off the downtown Cass Street Bridge, police said. A call came into the Joliet Police Department's communications center at 6:59 a.m. in reference to someone who jumped into the Des Plaines River. A few officers were in the immediate area. They quickly accessed a police boat and tried to save the man from drowning.

"As the officers observed the man in the water, he attempted to be drowning himself, placing his head in the water and drinking the water," Deputy Police Chief Ed Gregory said. "The officers said that he was determined to kill himself."

The man had jumped off the south side of the Cass Street bridge. The officers on the boat used a hook and retrieved the man from the river, which is normally 14 to 18 feet deep in that area. Officers then performed CPR on the man inside the boat as they rushed back to shore. Minutes later, a Joliet Fire Department ambulance transported the man to Presence Saint Joseph's Medical Center, but efforts to revive the man did not succeed.

The Will County Coroner's Office said the man was pronounced dead at 7:41 a.m. on Friday and that the preliminary cause of death was due to drowning.

Gregory said the 81-year-old man had visited the Joliet Police Department on Thursday. "He was a registered sex offender and had to come to the station," to provide police with his updated address as a standard procedure for registered sex offenders, Gregory said.

However, Joliet's deputy chief said he did not know whether the man had recently moved into Joliet or how long he had lived in the community.

At this point, the man's identity is not being released pending notification of relatives, the coroner's office said in a statement issued on Saturday afternoon.

File image via Joliet Patch